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| Nicolas Poussin Cleopatra and Augustus ca. 1624-25 oil on canvas National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
HISTORY: A nineteenth-century label on the stretcher states that the picture came from the Palazzo Barberini, Rome. It is not mentioned in the 1631 inventory, which is incomplete, nor in most of the later guide books, but it may be one of the 'due altri quadri, uno incontro all'altro, di Nicolò Pussino, che rappresentano diversi fatti della storia Romana' mentioned by Manazzale. English private collection; with Tomàs Harris, London, 1938. . . . Bought from Harris by the National Gallery of Canada in 1952.
"As one would expect, Poussin's first works executed in Rome are a direct continuation of the style which he had evolved in Paris. The earliest is probably the Cleopatra and Augustus, now in the National Gallery of Canada, which is said to have come from the Palazzo Barberini, and may possibly be his first commission from the cardinal. It is a clumsy work, combining but not harmonizing elements from all sorts of different sources. . . . The most striking feature of the painting is the rich coloring and free handling of Cleopatra's robe, and the brilliant treatment of helmets worn by the two soldiers in the right foreground. The latter is probably due to what Poussin learned from his master, Quentin Varin [in Paris, before the artist's departure for Italy at age 30 in 1624], but the painting of the robe is strictly Venetian and must be the direct result of the artist's visit to Venice on his way to Rome. [Many critics aside from Blunt refuse to attribute this painting to Poussin]."
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| Nicolas Poussin Hannibal crossing the Alps ca. 1626-27 oil on canvas private collection (Paris) |
HISTORY: Possibly painted for Cassiano dal Pozzo. Nothing is known of the recent history of this picture beyond that it was said by the dealer from whom the present owner bought it to have come from England.
"The inventory of Cassiano dal Pozzo's collection, made in 1715, contained under Nos. 67, 68 'Due quadri d'elefanti da Imp.re uno di Pietro Testa e l'altro di Pussino.' From the inventory there is no means of deciding whether the present painting is the Testa or the Poussin, but other evidence is in favour of the latter hypothesis. . . . There is however, as [Denis] Mahon points out, a complication due to the fact that elephants were very rarely to be seen in Rome, and that there is no record of one having been available in Rome at the relevant time. Moreover, one was shown there in 1630, when it was engraved by Pietro Testa, and his engraving is strikingly close to the present painting. It does not, however, follow that either Poussin or Testa used the actual elephant shown in 1630 as a model for their compositions. Pozzo's collection contained a great many drawings of animals, now unfortunately scattered, and these would almost certainly have included representations of elephants. If this was the case, it is more than likely that Poussin would have used such a drawing as his source, and quite possible that Testa did the same when he came to engrave the elephant that he had actually seen, since to copy an existing drawing would have been far less trouble than to make careful drawings from life."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Death of Germanicus 1628 oil on canvas Minneapolis Institute of Art |
HISTORY: Painted for Cardinal Francesco Barberini after his return from his legations abroad. A payment of 60 scudi for the picture is recorded on 24.i.1628. Passed by descent to the Prince of Palestrina and eventually to Prince Corsini; bought from him in 1958 by Messrs. Wildenstein; bought by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in the same year.
"The Death of Germanicus is Poussin's first fully mature work. Hitherto he had either been using a style already evolved in Paris, as in the battle pieces, or experimenting with varying degrees of success in new modes. In the Germanicus the Titianesque color is combined with mastery of spatial composition, and the whole of Poussin's art is displayed for the first time in a depiction of one of those heroic stories from ancient history which were to inspire him so frequently in the middle period of his life. The story of Germanicus was widely known in the seventeenth century through the version told by Tacitus, which inspired many tragedies, mainly by French writers. Germanicus, a noble and successful general, who was compared after his death with Alexander the Great, was a nephew of the Emperor Tiberius, who was jealous of his successes, particularly in the German campaigns. He was given the government of the eastern provinces of the Empire, but Tiberius placed Piso in Syria to watch him and thwart his activities if he threatened to become too powerful. While in Antioch, Germanicus fell ill and suspected Piso of having poisoned him at the instigation of the Emperor. On his deathbed he made his friends swear to avenge him and to care for his wife and children, who were with him at his death. . . . This scene has a grandeur unknown in Poussin's work before this time, which conveys magnificently the character of the story as told by Tacitus. The effect is heightened by the dignity of the arrangement, with the figures grouped round the bed as in an ancient relief of a death scene. . . . This was one of Poussin's most popular and most frequently copied compositions [Blunt lists 27 known copies]."
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| Nicolas Poussin Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria ca. 1630 oil on canvas Musée Condé, Chantilly |
"The story of Numa Pompilius retiring to take counsel with Egeria, a nymph of the grove of Diana at Ariccia, is well known, but is given a personal interpretation in this painting, because the king is shown plucking the Golden Bough of the grove, which no one could take unless he was guided by fate. The idea of destiny is, therefore, implicit, and is an early example of an influence which was to affect Poussin profoundly in the 1640's, that of Stoic philosophy. . . . By the middle of the thirties Poussin's interest in landscape becomes more marked: it begins to play a greater part in his figure compositions, and a few paintings are known in which the landscape is the principal theme and the figures are secondary. The earliest of these – probably dating from about 1630 – is a picture at Chantilly, so damaged that its authenticity has often been challenged, which represents Numa Pompilius and the nymph Egeria. . . . It is not one of Poussin's most impressive compositions, but it is his earliest surviving attempt to build up a landscape in depth."
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| Nicolas Poussin Queen Zenobia found on the Banks of the Arax ca. 1634 oil on canvas Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
"When I saw the Hermitage painting many years ago I did not think it was by Poussin, but it has since been published as such by V.K. Guerz, and, when this catalogue was already in page proof, Dr. J. Shearman, who had recently examined the painting, assured me that he was convinced that it was an original by Poussin, though in many parts unfinished." [The Zenobia has since Blunt's day been generally accepted as by Poussin].
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| Nicolas Poussin The Saving of the Infant Pyrrhus ca. 1637 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Duc de Richelieu; bought with his whole collection by Louis XIV in 1665. The subject is taken from Plutarch's Life of Pyrrhus. The two left-hand figures in the foreground, one throwing a stone and the other a spear, are connected with two of the illustrations to Leonardo's Trattato.
"In the Saving of the Infant Pyrrhus of about 1637 Poussin uses a new weapon by introducing architecture in his background. The town of Megara, seen across the river [a river not easily perceived in reproduction, but the reclining figure seen from the back at far left represents a river god, indicating the (very small) river's position], is made up of a series of rectangular buildings arranged in steps up the hill, which give a firm scaffolding to the landscape and foreshadow the methods used in the paintings of the next decade. The curious pinkish glow, which has become evident since the painting was cleaned, shows that Poussin was following his source carefully and identifying the time of day as sunset in accordance with the story as told by Plutarch."
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| Nicolas Poussin Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii 1637 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Commissioned by Louis Phélipeaux de la Vrillière in 1637. Passed by descent with his house to his great-grandson, the Marquis de la Vrillière et de Châteauneuf, who sold the hôtel to Raulin Rouillé, Sieur de Jouy, in 1705. Sold with the house by his widow in 1713 to the Comte de Toulouse. Passed by descent to the Duc de Penthièvre; confiscated in 1794 and transferred to the Louvre.
"A few of the richer financiers were interested in Poussin's work. Louis Phélipeaux de la Vrillière commissioned the big Schoolmaster of Falerii to go with the series of Italian Baroque artists which he had ordered to decorate the gallery in his hôtel, built by François Mansart. Nicolas Fouquet acquired Chantelou's Manna and commissioned Poussin to design a series of herms for the gardens at Vaux-le-Vicomte, and his master, Mazarin, owned three canvases by Poussin. But these collectors were the exception, and their patronage is too isolated to affect the general fact that Poussin's best and most faithful patrons after 1642 came from the solid middle section of the bourgeoisie."
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| Nicolas Poussin Camillus and the Schoolmaster of Falerii ca. 1637 oil on canvas Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena |
HISTORY: In the collection of the Fürsten zu Schaumburg-Lippe; listed in the inventory made of the collection by the painter Gumbrecht in 1738. Sold Bückeburg, 1929, bought by Rosenbaum, Frankfort; sold to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia. Sold by him to Böhler, Munich, and by Böhler to Henry Lévy of Strasbourg in 1934; [by descent to Claude Lang, son-in-law of Henry Lévy; sold by him in 1970 through Kenneth Walker, New York to the Norton Simon Museum].
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| Nicolas Poussin The Capture of Jerusalem by Titus ca. 1638-39 oil on canvas Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
HISTORY: Commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Barberini and given by him to Prince Eggenberg, Imperial Ambassador to Urban VIII in 1638-39, probably as a gift for the Emperor; recorded in the Imperial collection in 1718; later in the possession of Fürst Kaunitz; bought back from him in 1820.
"From Josephus comes also the capture of Jerusalem, a subject that Poussin painted twice [above and below] before the journey to Paris. The medieval tradition which treated this subject as symbolizing God's vengeance on the Jews for the death of Christ was still alive in the seventeenth century and is found, for instance, in a poem by G.B. Lalli, Tito Vespasiano, overo Gerusalemme disolata."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Capture of Jerusalem by Titus 1625-26 oil on canvas Israel Museum, Jerusalem |
HISTORY: Painted for Cardinal Francesco Barberini and paid for on 13.ii.1626. Given away by the Cardinal soon afterwards, probably to Cardinal Richelieu, since in Félibien's time it belonged to his niece, the Duchesse d'Aiguillon, who sold it to Sainctot. Loménie de Brienne, writing in 1693-95, speaks of it as chez Madᵉ la marquise d'Aligre, and this is confirmed by a list made in 1697 of pictures belonging to François Quesnel but pledged to Mme d'Aligre, at her house in the rue St. Guillaume. These pictures were recovered by Quesnel in 1698. . . . Probably Carignan sale, Poilly, Paris, 1742. [Blunt considered this a "lost" painting, whereabouts untraced since the mid-18th century. It was discovered, a decade after Blunt's death, by art historian Denis Mahon, who found it "covered in layers of lacquer and dust, presented as the work of a minor artist depicting the conquest of Carthage. Restored to its original state, it was donated to the Israel Museum in 1998, thus returning "home" to the site in which the events it describes originally took place."]
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| Nicolas Poussin Coriolanus ca. 1647-49 oil on canvas Musée Nicolas Poussin, Les Andelys, Normandy |
HISTORY: Belonged to the Marquis de Hauterive in 1685. Presumably the painting mentioned by Dézallier d'Argenville as in the collection of M. Bouret, Fermier Général, in the rue Grange-Batelière. The picture at Les Andelys was confiscated by the State from the collection of Simon Charles Boutin in 1794 and sent to Les Andelys [birthplace of Poussin] in 1802; later hung in the Préfecture of Eure at Evreux; returned to Les Andelys and hung in the town hall.
"The Scipio [below] and the Coriolanus [above] might almost have been painted as a pair. Their compositions are based on precisely similar patterns but in reverse: the principal figure at one side, the supplicants in the middle, and the other side closed by a group of standing warriors carrying spears. Both are essentially conceived as bas-reliefs; both display Poussin's methods of rhetoric, though the Scipio is much more restrained than the Coriolanus; both show a rendering of ancient Roman armor based on careful archaeological study."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Continence of Scipio ca. 1643-45 oil on canvas Pushkin Museum, Moscow |
HISTORY: C.J.B. Fleuriau, Comte de Morville, who died in 1732; Sir Robert Walpole by 1741; bought with the Walpole collection by the Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1779; sent to Moscow [from the Hermitage] in 1930.
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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with Diogenes 1648 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
HISTORY: Félibien states that this painting was executed in 1648 for Lumague, a Genoese banker who lived partly in Paris and partly in Lyons. [Later acquired by the] Duc de Richelieu; bought with his collection by Louis XIV in 1665.
"During the short space of three years, between 1648 and 1651, Poussin produced no less than thirteen major landscapes still traceable today. The greatest and the most famous of these are built round themes which Poussin took from his favorite Stoic writers: the two landscapes with the story of Phocion [below] and the Diogenes [above], and in them . . . Poussin gave his most splendid expression to the parallel between the two productions of the supreme reason: the harmony of nature and the virtue of man."
HISTORY: Painted with its pendant [directly below] . . . for Cérisier in 1648; still in his possession in 1665. Pierre de Beauchamp (died after 1698), Maître des Ballets du Roi, by 1687. In the collection of Denis Moreau in 1702. Passed by descent to the Nyert family. [Both Phocion paintings] recorded in the inventory of Louis de Nyert, Marquis de Gambias, taken at his death in 1736, [after which they passed separately into a succession of English collections, before entering separate public collections toward the end of the 20th century].
"The subjects chosen by Poussin for the landscapes of the years 1648-51 vary considerably, but all the paintings of this group have many basic features in common which can be seen most clearly in the Ashes of Phocion, one of the grandest of all Poussin's compositions. Never have the order and harmony of nature been more impressively depicted. The spatial composition is built up according to the principles which Poussin used in his first landscapes, but with even greater sharpness. The viewpoint is lower than hitherto, and the panoramic quality has entirely disappeared. Instead, the eye is led step by step through a completely organized closed space. The foreground is established by two masses of trees and by the intersecting lines of the wall and the path. . . . The two figures collecting the hero's ashes are placed at the point of intersection of these two leading lines, the standing woman being also exactly below the temple in the background. Behind the group stretches a flat area, marked out by smaller figures and leading to the river, which fixes a middle-distance line parallel with the picture plane. On the farther bank rises the city of Megara, composed of buildings on the slope of a low hill. Every building is parallel or at right angles to the picture plane, and the central feature is the Corinthian portico of a temple seen frontally. Behind this group nature takes over again in the masses of rocks and trees which tower over the city. But it is nature reduced to architectural order, for the cliffs are as clearly articulated as the temple, and the trees group themselves in planes following up those of the houses. Finally we come to the sky, formed of overlapping layers of clouds which continue the geometry of the whole design, and, instead of allowing the eye to pass on to the infinity of the empyrean, keep it in a closed space, as sharply demarcated as the foreground and the middle distance."
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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with the Body of Phocion carried out of Athens 1648 oil on canvas National Museum of Wales, Cardiff |
HISTORY: Painted with its pendant [directly below] . . . for Cérisier in 1648; still in his possession in 1665. Pierre de Beauchamp (died after 1698), Maître des Ballets du Roi, by 1687. In the collection of Denis Moreau in 1702. Passed by descent to the Nyert family. [Both Phocion paintings] recorded in the inventory of Louis de Nyert, Marquis de Gambias, taken at his death in 1736, [after which they passed separately into a succession of English collections, before entering separate public collections toward the end of the 20th century].
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| Nicolas Poussin Landscape with the Ashes of Phocion collected by his Widow 1648 oil on canvas Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool |
"The subjects chosen by Poussin for the landscapes of the years 1648-51 vary considerably, but all the paintings of this group have many basic features in common which can be seen most clearly in the Ashes of Phocion, one of the grandest of all Poussin's compositions. Never have the order and harmony of nature been more impressively depicted. The spatial composition is built up according to the principles which Poussin used in his first landscapes, but with even greater sharpness. The viewpoint is lower than hitherto, and the panoramic quality has entirely disappeared. Instead, the eye is led step by step through a completely organized closed space. The foreground is established by two masses of trees and by the intersecting lines of the wall and the path. . . . The two figures collecting the hero's ashes are placed at the point of intersection of these two leading lines, the standing woman being also exactly below the temple in the background. Behind the group stretches a flat area, marked out by smaller figures and leading to the river, which fixes a middle-distance line parallel with the picture plane. On the farther bank rises the city of Megara, composed of buildings on the slope of a low hill. Every building is parallel or at right angles to the picture plane, and the central feature is the Corinthian portico of a temple seen frontally. Behind this group nature takes over again in the masses of rocks and trees which tower over the city. But it is nature reduced to architectural order, for the cliffs are as clearly articulated as the temple, and the trees group themselves in planes following up those of the houses. Finally we come to the sky, formed of overlapping layers of clouds which continue the geometry of the whole design, and, instead of allowing the eye to pass on to the infinity of the empyrean, keep it in a closed space, as sharply demarcated as the foreground and the middle distance."
"In fact, the whole space is conceived as a closed box in which each object, whether a human being, a tree, a rock, a house, or a cloud, takes up a precisely defined position, so that one could draw the ground plan of the whole as easily as if it were the interior of a church by Bramante."
"The picture is as carefully organized on the surface as it is in depth. The horizontals and verticals of the architecture form a central grid which is carried on in looser forms toward the edges of the composition in the lines of the clouds, the river, and the trees. The two massive groups of ilexes on either side approach the contour of the mountain behind the city, leaving a gap between which has an almost positive character. Above the mountain the two masses are actually linked together by the bands of horizontal clouds, while the cumulus above repeats the rounded forms of the foliage. The tension thus created in the upper part of the composition is echoed in a curious form in the lower. The attendant turns her head as if on the lookout for danger, and indeed, if we follow her gaze, we see a youth at the foot of a tree on the extreme right, evidently spying on the two women collecting the ashes."
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| Nicolas Poussin The Testament of Eudamidas ca. 1653-55 oil on canvas Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen |
HISTORY: Painted for Michel Passart; Froment de Veine before 1700; Beauchamp, rue des Fossés-Montmartre, Paris, ca. 1757. Bought through Saly by Count Moltke in 1759; bought from his descendant by the Museum in Copenhagen in 1951.
"The story is told by Lucian, but it is possible that Poussin's attention may have been drawn to it by the fact that it is given at length by Montaigne. . . . The Testament of Eudamidas is the classical equivalent to the Lamentation and has the same gravity, expressed with the same economy. In one way Poussin here goes further in self-denial than in the religious painting, for, whereas the latter owes so much to the very dramatic use of color . . . in the Eudamidas all brilliance of color has gone, and the picture is painted in tones so subdued as to be unusual even in Poussin's later works. This is, however, precisely in accordance with the nature of the story and the character of the man who was its hero. . . . At this stage of his career Poussin, who was sixty in 1654 and suffered increasingly from ill health, painted much more slowly than in the previous decade."
– Anthony Blunt, Nicolas Poussin, (Phaidon Press, 1958) and The Paintings of Nicolas Poussin: a Critical Catalogue (Phaidon Press, 1966)